Page 49

Pepper realized her fist was still in Chester’s sleeve. Mortified, she opened her fingers. He didn’t step away. He stood quite still, as though any sudden motion might bring the whole curtain—perhaps the whole house—down.

“I am sorry you had to hear that,” he said quietly.

“You must be accustomed to it,” she whispered back, keeping her gaze fixed on the shadowed curve of his shoulder. “Men speaking of…lesser people.”

“I am less resigned to it than you imagine,” he said so quietly, the whisper was almost a breath.

For a moment, they didn’t move.

The footsteps had faded, swallowed by music and laughter, but somewhere out in the corridor a board creaked, a fabric hem brushed stone. Someone might still be there. Listening or turning back, perhaps?

Pepper kept very still.

A strip of light bled under the edge of the curtain, just enough to find the hem of her gown. Rose silk, respectably draped… then the honest line of leather beneath.

Sensible, not pretty.

Sturdy, not delicate.

Worn in for balance and grip, not chiming over long rugs toward an altar on a duke’s arm.

Tears she’d forgotten she’d shed were drying on her cheek. She lifted her hand from Chester’s sleeve, meaning to swipe them away and pretend they’d never existed.

Before she could, his fingers slid down, found hers, and laced through them.

It was so unexpected she almost gasped aloud. His grip was firm and gentle both, the way a man holds something he fully intends to keep steady. With his other hand he reached—slowly, giving her every chance to flinch but she didn’t—and touched the side of her cheek. The warmth of his gloved thumb brushed away the dampness she hadn’t managed to hide.

In the dark.

Behind a curtain.

With this man wiping her tears.

How could he be so sweet?

They were hiding from half of Brighton…and yet Pepper had never felt more exposed in her life.

She looked up. Their gazes caught and held.

The close darkness made everything else disappear. She couldn’t see his whole face, only pieces: the faint gleam where lantern-light from the garden picked out his eyes, the strong line of his nose, the shadow at his jaw. Enough to know he was even nearer than he had been a moment before. Or perhaps she had drifted closer to him; it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began in their secluded spot behind layers of curtain.

Her mouth parted in a tiny, startled breath. She had always known he was handsome—anyone with eyes could see that—but here, with only a sliver of light and no space between them, he was devastatingly gorgeous. All that careful polish he wore in public seemed to fall away. What was left felt…earnest. Present. Focused entirely on her.

A soft click sounded out in the corridor. A latch? A shoe on stone? Someone was out there.

Her instinct was to duck away. She only managed the smallest inclination of her head—shall we run? shall we breathe?—before he moved his head once in answer. A tiny, decisive no. Not safe yet.

So this was what it felt like to be compromised.

She swallowed. Her gaze wanted to drop, to flee back to the reassuring sight of her boots. Instead, his hand left her cheek and his index finger came to rest lightly under her chin.

He tilted her face up.

The moment did something unfamiliar but most welcome. It didn’t quite stop; it stretched. The muffled music, the distant clink of glass, the whisper of the sea beyond the garden—all of it pulled away until there was only the heat of his hand, the scent of starch and wine and faint vanilla, and the unwavering way he was looking at her.

No one had ever looked at her like that. As if she were not a problem to be solved or a duty to be discharged but…a choice. A marvel. A temptation.

If she leaned the smallest distance—